


Ditch Romance

by Anonymous



Category: Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Amnesia, Established Relationship, Getting Back Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22596103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Croc has one major certainty after waking up with some brain damage: He's going to tear apart whoever caused it.(He's about to get two.)
Relationships: GQ Edwards/Waylon Jones
Comments: 5
Kudos: 81
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5, anonymous





	Ditch Romance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hecate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/gifts).



Priority one: Mission effectiveness. How easy would Killer Croc be to direct in his current state?

That's what Croc heard first, filtering in past a jackhammer of a headache. "Missions"? When the hell had he ever been landed with anything like that - official, and maybe military? Somebody thought they had the balls to feed him some flimsy thing like orders? He laughed his way out of uneasy unconsciousness.

Then he tested if he could break the hospital bed they had him cuffed to - broke off the bed railing with a whining wrench of metal, though the handcuff was strong enough to bite into his wrist.

Croc gave a little wave at the wardens and suits standing around, then lay back and got comfortable, propping the bed railing on the floor and draping his arm over it.

"Priority two," said some woman, one of the suits and ice cold. "Remind Killer Croc of the bomb he's carrying around."

Bluffs didn't come over like that. It had Croc leaning more heavily on the bed railing, shoving it a screaming inch on the floor in shock.

She motioned for one of the others to show him a video of the bomb at work as she explained things, and his own thoughts reasoned it out alongside the explanation. He did missions because of the threat of death, and because he could do what nobody else could - yeah, all right.

The way Croc had forgotten about all of that - _that_ blame rested with a few soldier boys who'd gone rogue and knew how to take him out easy. They'd run off with some other people in "Task Force X". His squad, they told him.

Croc judged it time to heft the bed railing back onto the bed and flex some - ball it up like tinfoil, making teeth grind all around his crowded bedside. The cuffs wouldn't break loose of the ball; folks did tend to remember to make whatever cuffs they tried to slap on him unbreakable, even if they didn't happen to be as careful about whatever they cuffed him to.

Demonstration made, he asked, "When do I help get them back?"

They were willing to let him fight for them, just like that. The boss, Waller, must have got used to all his "mission effectiveness". A nurse said he'd get something for the headaches and the rest of him was fine - free to beat to more or less whatever kind of hell he felt like.

Croc almost said something about getting counselling for his trauma.

It wouldn't have been funny. He didn't want them to treat him like he was human. But all in all, he was rattled. Waking up in a hospital bed with changes forced on him, on his body, that he hadn't known before ... that was a memory he still had. It was at least a dozen memories from all throughout puberty. It had taken time to learn to love how much he could wreck shit in a body that made him more than most any man on the street.

This, though - having some pieces of shit changing what was in his own brain - now that was free to stick in his teeth. No way, no how did he have to learn to love that.

He tested the swing of the ball of metal chained to his arm as he waited for the pain killers.

"That's not exactly the ideal way to break in a bed, man," the soldier boy standing closest told him.

"You jokin'?"

"It was at least a little funny!" said the guy.

Croc ignored him, hoping to lure something angry out of him. A joke was more unexpected than amnesia. Than the bomb.

But it was quiet for the rest of his stay in that room. He should have enjoyed the whole set-up more. There was some sunlight. For the debrief, it was right on back to that proper prison dark and dankness.

*

"Glad you're with us on this, man," said soldier boy after the debriefing.

Same voice, same smell, same heartbeat - it was the guy who'd joked around before. He didn't linger, heading off with his unit to go stock up on their guns and body armour and all. He hadn't been standing close to Croc again, either. He'd walked over for the pep talk ... welcoming committee ... whatever.

" _Are_ you with us on this?" Deadshot asked. At least it made more sense that he was happy chilling a seat down from Croc, being another con. "I mean, are you giving a good goddamn? 'Cause I figure it's more... getting a chance to go outside. Maybe getting a kick out of chomping on a few people. More than being after Boomerang and Harley and Flag, when you don't know their asses anymore."

"Don't have to be loud about it," Croc said, baring his teeth. He wasn't about to go into his deep feelings about this. "Some of us know how to use good PR."

Deadshot took it seriously - and it had Croc rattled, feeling it as a sign that they must have got to know each other for him to know it wasn't a joke. "So is that how come you'regetting that GQ Edwards on your side, huh?"

"Who?

"Mr Friendly, just gave you a welcome to the team. I think your boyfriend misses you, man."

"Kinda name is 'GQ'?"

"Nickname. Like the magazine."

Croc called to mind what kind of magazine that was. "He calls his ass 'pretty' and joins the army?"

"Navy. He's a Navy SEAL. All kinds of brave, huh."

He scoffed in reply. It was obvious he was missing something that Deadshot was fishing around for. Now, as with most other extended amounts of time he spent around people, he didn't give a shit about it.

*

Croc got handed high-tech knuckledusters as a means to surprise the guys who'd knocked him around; this time, he'd be the one dealing out electric hits. Deadshot got handed a couple of grenade launchers - guns that barely had to be aimed. Some ninja warrior lady got to keep her sword ... but she said something about working with the ghosts inside it instead of swinging it around, and Croc backed up a few steps and let her do whatever she wanted.

They had to hit hard and fast, before the enemy had enough time to move from the location the latest intel had them pinned at. Enough people tried to hand out orders that Croc was grateful for the fact they were heading to whatever abandoned laboratory it was in helicopters.

Once the fight started, Croc also found that he had - hard as he'd been avoiding it - a teammate.

"What are you still doing here?" Croc hollered. He had the biggest migraine of his thick-skulled life, and the prettiest soldier refused to get off his ass. Which he was finding _helpful_.

Boomerang was screaming at them for a rescue and basically no one was laughing at him for it. Everybody around Croc was fighting their way towards the prisoners - aside from GQ, who was with him in focusing on attacking the enemy. That wasn't how he remembered the score was supposed to be, and the gap between what he knew and what he was getting didn't help the headache any.

"Support!" GQ yelled back. "You rip off a dozen heads. I watch your back. No one's unhappy."

It took a lot to get Croc's skin crawling. He couldn't ignore this guy, though he tried - they were marching on the same ground, and the other soldiers were leaving them to it. It distracted him to see so much of the same movement to the sides of the room as at his back. It made his headache worse that no one but him was unhappy with this. Life did not work this way, a pretty soldier boy sniping the shit out of people on his behalf.

"You don't got some snitches to fuck up? These guys who left you and the band of brothers behind?"

GQ's gun went off a few times. "Doing all right here."

Croc surged forwards with the speed that people didn't expect from him. He left GQ to watching his own back. That's what the body armour was for, anyway.

He was busy biting the throat out of some bastard when something hit him right between the shoulder blades, a hard and heavy weight that grew heavier in a second - and then a body dropped down beside him and into a crouch.

"Shield your eyes!" GQ hissed at a volume not many people besides Croc would be able to hear while in the middle of a fight. When the flashbang from hell went off, lighting the room blindingly, Croc was lucky to be squinting in confusion. It spared him in the second before he did follow the instruction to shield his eyes.

After that, it got a lot easier for the two of them to take out the people immediately around them. Croc's vision was still blurry, but smell and sound made up for it easy.

"You could have just thrown the flashbang without jumping on my back," he told GQ when the immediate threats were down.

"Had to get it up there, on the walkway. So nobody was in position to cover it up. The boost was handy."

He was staring. There wasn't any time for it, though, so he stopped doing it quick enough. And then he turned and made sure he had enough bullets in his gun, falling into position to be in step with Croc.

Fine.

 _Let_ him. 

They slaughtered their way through what they could. When GQ took injury, Croc hustled him over to some of his human Navy buddies out of the goodness of his heart, then waded back in.

When the fight was done, Croc headed for the barricade of work benches the Navy boys had occupied. He helped GQ up onto his feet, and was surprised and unsurprised when the guy leaned on him with an arm around his waist to steady himself. They started walking out in the lab's overly bright corridors.

"We fight like this all the time? Me and ... the taskforce," Croc said.

"Suicide Squad, you guys like to call it." GQ stared at him like he was set to disappear all the way, more than just his memories. "All the time. You and me. Got some understandings going about it."

More than the arm around his waist, Croc remembered stomping back over to the barricade GQ had been recovering behind. He'd smiled when Croc's face appeared above him.

It took a lot for Croc to really remember a human face. Hell, superhuman faces weren't much easier.

"I don't remember shit," he said. "But ... I could start from now on."

He took his turn being the one to stick around as doctors examined GQ. Harley Quinn came dancing over doped up on her own self and pleased with him and the Squad, and the Rick Flag guy said a few words to GQ and nodded to Croc.

"That's it? That's all it takes with you guys?" Deadshot called as he walked past with an escort that looked a whole lot more formal. He was maybe laughing a little now, just a touch lighter around the mouth.

"We've got some understandings," Croc echoed. It felt crazy to say, to think about. "We got some claims?"

"Figured it was easier demonstrated than told," GQ said. "I knew you'd want to kick some ass after getting it kicked in the first place."

That smile again. Yeah, Croc sure was remembering.

He took a step close - nothing more so far. But he wanted to take this GQ guy in, in all the ways he had in these last hours: scent, voice, his most common movements, and the so-called pretty boy look of him.

"All right."

"Mind if I swing by to watch TV later? You've got, like, five channels now."

If he said that he might be watching GQ more than the TV, it would sound like a line. And it would be more embarrassing when it turned out to be fact. But Croc did kind want to get to know the shape of his nose, how he liked to trim his beard. All that. It felt like he could owe GQ that.

"All right," Croc said again. For now, he watched everyone walking around themleave him to his claim, popped another super-aspirin, and walked on to get a little more outside air.


End file.
